The Fear Factor in Journalism

Have you ever done, or not done, something out of fear? Have you ever crossed to the other side of the street to avoid a group of teenagers, white or black? Have you ever decided not to travel to a distant land because you feared violence?

I can honestly and unashamedly say I am guilty of letting fear control some of my actions. Though I have traveled to Israel numerous times, even during an Intifada, I have avoided vacationing in South America, part of an irrational fear and prejudice stimulated by too many clichés about banana republics and banditto violence.

I don’t know about you but I am in awe of foreign correspondent who thrust themselves into tense surroundings in countries where they mostly do not speak the native tongue. While hordes of civilians and even military personnel flee scenes of combat, war correspondents charge toward the front. Don’t they have family to go home to? Don’t they fear for their lives, particularly in the Middle East where journalists are now prized for their hostage qualifications as stars of potential videotaped beheadings?

For journalists, the front lines no longer are confined to zones of deadly combat exchanges. The brutal massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, an act of butchery regrettably easily duplicated anywhere in the world by terrorists acting individually or in groups or even by state supported thugs, makes that plain.

We can track down perpetrators (as they did Friday in France), even stop them before they implement their evil, but we will never be able to eradicate the threat to society, not as long as crazed fanatics can distort a religion or creed and manipulate an individual to abandon all decency and kill at will.

During my working career as a journalist I didn’t have to fear my decisions would affect anyone’s life or death. That’s not to say fear did not enter some of my editorial and publishing choices. It was a fear based on economic consequences. Would we lose advertising if we criticized a supplier? Would we lose circulation if we questioned the strategy of a retail company? Would we lose an exhibitor if we didn’t shave booth costs or provide a better location on the trade show floor?

I’d like to say I resisted all those temptations to journalistic integrity and independence, that they all stemmed from my bosses’ blind pursuit of the almighty dollar while I remained true to the journalist’s separation of church and state—editorial and sales. There were times, I acknowledge, when I gave in. I rationalized that even The New York Times, no matter what its editor might say, made decisions based on current or prospective advertisers or which politicians the paper favored or rejected.

I compromised my values. Nobody died or was injured because I succumbed to my fears. Nor did any heinous philosophy spread. Simple commerce was transacted.

Fear has killed far more stories than the abhorrent attack on the staff of Charlie Hebdo. Even as the world, particularly the journalistic community, extols “Je Suis Charlie,” few if any publications or Web sites have reprinted the images of Mohammed that provoked the assault. 

Should they? Sit quietly in a room surrounded by pictures of your family and decide for yourself. What would you do?

Making the Cut, Religiously Speaking

Making the Cut: I’m still here, and if you’re reading this so are you, which means neither of us made the cut, the select group of 140,000 souls who were to be saved Saturday evening before the world began its inexorable descent to destruction.

No one I know was transported to heaven while the rest of us, according to the prophesy, endure earthquakes, plagues, war, famine and general torment for five months, until October, when everything comes to an end. Of course, we already have earthquakes, plagues, war, famine and general torment, so it’s hard to say what’s different. Indeed, yesterday a volcano erupted on Iceland, an earthquake rocked New Zealand, and we’re still at war in many places.

I’m not here to make fun of Harold Camping, the 89-year-old Christian radio entrepreneur who predicted universal demise. Lord knows there are many more talented wits who have and will continue to do so. Besides, they get paid to be funny. Nor am I here to make fun of those sorry souls who believed in Camping’s image of the future. They are troubled, perhaps desperate people.

Nary an organized religion has eluded the pull of a return to a time when belief trumped current conditions, when reverence for god and his respective messengers was more appealing than the drudgery of everyday life or, worse, intense hardship and oppression.

The Lubavitcher sect of Jews had a schism over the disputed claim that Rabbi Menachem Schneerson was the messiah. He’ll be dead 17 years on June 12, with no outward sign that the world to come has arrived. In the mid-1600s, many Jews abandoned their homes to follow Shabtai Tzvi, a self-proclaimed messiah. He ultimately converted to Islam.

Jihadists clamor for a resurrection of the caliphate blessed by Mohammed. Camping is just the latest Christian to bedevil the faithful. At least those who believed in him didn’t wind up dead, like the 82 unlucky Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, who followed David Koresh, or the 909 who drank Jim Jones’s Kool-aid in Guyana in 1978. But many who trusted Camping did leave their jobs, sell their possessions and confound their friends and relatives.

I don’t think you have to be totally content with your life, but if you reach the stage where your only alternative is to believe the end of the world is nigh and you will be among those who achieve eternal salvation, it’s time to check into the clinic and stay there, perhaps until all the earthquakes, plagues, wars, famines and general torments end.


Cut It Off, Not Out: Sufficient San Francisco voters have signed a petition to place on the November ballot a vote to ban circumcision for male children under 18. No exception for religious practices of Jews or Muslims. Violators would be charged with a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to one year in jail.

All it took was 7,700 signatures to get the initiative on the ballot (7,168 were needed). Supporters of the ban (now also being considered in Santa Monica) claim circumcisions mutilate the penis and inflict pain and lifelong suffering. They deny any medical benefits from circumcision, such as reduced transmission of AIDS by heterosexual men.

This latest attack on religious practice can be compared to the challenge some states have posed to the ritual slaughter of animals according to kosher and halal guidelines. It’s argued animals suffer more when ritualistically slaughtered.

However well-intentioned proponents of these restrictions are, their efforts should be dismissed as incorrect, impolitic and ignorant. And unconstitutional, as they infringe on religious observance. Let’s hope San Francisco voters, and any others who face such a choice, leave religious practice intact, allowing animals to be killed according to humane religious custom and permitting parents to cut at will the foreskin of their male progeny.